Mother Lode is now in the collection of the Renwick Gallery, National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Mother Lode demonstrates the magic of transformation. The necklace of 19 vials of panned gold suspended in liquid, works a kind of alchemy by transforming the vials from cheap trinkets into a conceptually rich and exquisitely finished necklace. Mother Lode is intended to be very tongue-in-cheek: while creating the necklace, Enterline aimed to channel Nancy Reagan or some other “proper lady”.

MATERIALS: 18k gold, panned gold, glass ampules, denatured alcohol, maple, velvet

Mother Lode Chandelier Necklace Mother Lode Chandelier Pendant is now in the collection of the Newark Museum, Newark, NJ.

Enterline was giddy with delight when she came across these little souvenir vials of panned gold in a tourist shop in Murphys, CA 1997. The appeal was the pure beauty and mystery of the material as well as the prosaic funkiness of the little plastic stoppers and vials. She thought that a thousand Boy Scouts must be wandering around with these little gems in their pockets. Here was a precious material — pure gold — that had been reduced to kitsch.

MATERIALS: 18k gold, glass, panned gold, denatured alcohol

Mother Lode and the Mother Lode Chandelier Necklace were both exhibited in Pretty Crude at Velvet da Vinci, San Francisco, CA in 2011